While at a flea market last week, I saw the books being sorted into the category “More Interesting Women”. In my mind I automatically made the label say “more interesting women than YOU”. So what female characters do I find more interesting than myself. Well, lets begin…

5. When Everything Changed

This collection of real women’s stories written and collected by Gail Collins is the perfect example of a book full of interesting women. The first story features a woman wearing pants in a courtroom. Can you get more bad ass?

4. I Capture the Castle

This novel by Dodie Smith tells the story of a young girl, Cassandra, as she develops her writing skills in a diary she keeps. Like any young girl she complains of her boring life, but she lives in a castle, making her life way cooler than mine.

3. The Color Purple

Lesbians in the 1930s. Woah! That’s interesting.

2. Zelda

In this biography Nancy Milford tells the life of Zelda Fitzgerald. She was the inspiration for almost every female character F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, so it makes sense that she is super interesting. And reading about Zelda’s transformation from Southern beauty to sad schizophrenic is both unfortunate and engrossing. I have not finished this book yet, but with 75% done I know she is cooler than me.

1. The Women’s Room

I think this book has to be my number one because every woman explored in this book had a story that explains so much about women and their evolution over time. It was remarkable how Marilyn French would delve into minor characters so deeply, telling full back stories that are impossible to forget. Even the most minor character are more interesting than myself.

Well those are the books I could come up with. Have any more to add? Tell me what they are.